


Stupid Acorns

by strawberry_feels_forever



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 20:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19069972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberry_feels_forever/pseuds/strawberry_feels_forever
Summary: Five didn’t have time for this.He was too busy trying to fend off the apocalypse, hide from The Commission, and bond with his family. His plate was already full.So when time travel goes wrong and he gets turned into a small child, it’s honestly the last thing he needs.





	Stupid Acorns

**Author's Note:**

> Title is inspired by that one line in the show: "A spatial jump is trivial when compared with the unknowns of time travel.  
> One is like sliding along the ice, the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn."

   So they stopped the apocalypse.

  
   Or at least put it on hold.

  
   After Vanya broke the moon, Five sent his siblings back to the start of their eight day countdown. With the knowledge and experience they had now, things were different. But with all the problems they solved by time traveling, they had created new problems too: Grace, Patch, and Pogo weren’t dead, but then neither was Leonard/Harold. Allison was healthy and Vanya hadn’t gone insane. But likewise, Hazel and Cha-Cha and the Handler were still alive.

  
   Things were complicated.

 

   But at least they stood a better chance this time around.

 

   After the first two days of making amends to Vanya, Five couldn’t help but wonder when The Commission would be after him. In the earlier timeline, he’d already killed their first wave of assassins. Hazel and Cha-Cha should be looking for him now if things were going according to schedule. Or did The Commission know what was going on and decide to send someone else since it hadn’t worked the first time? It was all a little confusing. And Five didn’t think he’d be able to talk through these ideas with his siblings. They still had trouble understanding the initial timeline.

   The Commission was in a pocket of time so far removed from their reality though. Their job was to be aware of any and all time interferences. In his experience, no matter what happened in the rest of the world, whenever time was reset or messed with, they remained informed. In fact, there was a whole library full of different universes created and destroyed by one mistake made in time… They had to know what was going on.

   That made Five more nervous than he was willing to admit. Like he was just waiting for things to go wrong.

   Then of course, they did.

   Something went wrong in their second chance and Five traveled back in time again. Then their third chance became their fourth, and their fourth became their fifth. Everything moved in a circle of mistakes and nobody ever got what they wanted because they were destined to fail.

   But Five didn’t believe that. He was going to try again and again until his powers gave up on him or until he was dead. He had fought too long and too hard to give in now. Surely, something would change that would allow them a chance in surviving the end of the world. Something would have to change for the variables to shift. And eventually, that something did. It was the thing Five had been waiting for, but when time came around, he was… less than amused.

   The seventh trip through time had left Five feeling miserable. He was so weak he could hardly stand. He didn’t have the energy to carry four people (plus one ghost) through time again. He had to improvise. It would just be him.

   But things went wrong. Very wrong. Time travel was crapshoot. He went into the ice and reappeared as an acorn.

   Not quite an acorn.

   But still bad.

   Five stepped back in time and reappeared as a small child.

   He didn’t have time to contemplate the theory of what went wrong. His first thoughts were about frustration, then the world went dark as he slipped into unconsciousness.

   When Five woke up, he had no idea how long it had been.

   When he woke up, Klaus was hovering over him.

   “Oh thank God, you’re alive! We were worried you might be dead.” They were alone in the mansion. Five assumed “we” was inclusive of Ben. If not, Klaus had finally lost his last brain cell.

   Speaking of brains, Five’s wasn’t in great shape either. He could feel it pounding against his skull. He reached up to rub at his eyes. They felt like they were on fire and there was blood dripping from his nose.

   “I’m not dead--yet. Where is everyone?”

   “Out trying to stop the apocalypse. Better question,” Klaus squatted down so he was eye level with Five on the floor. Kluas looked at him with scrutiny, tilting his head from side to side, “why do you look like a bad reboot of Zac Effron in Seventeen Again? I mean, 58 to 13 was dramatic enough, this might be going a bit too far.”

   Five glared at him. “It wasn’t intentional.” Time travel was hard. He’d barely made it to his destination in the first place. But at least Klaus’s had jogged his memory. If his siblings were out trying to stop the apocalypse, then Five had traveled back to day after he’d last traveled. In plain terms, he had arrived minutes after the last attempt started. And if he didn’t intervene, that last attempt would fail again.

   Klaus seemed to understand this, or maybe it was Ben. When Five moved to stand, Klaus stopped him.

   “Wait, if you’re here and you just traveled through time again, does that mean that the last plan didn’t work and we failed again?”

   “Yes.”

   “Well then, we’re fucked.”

   Five chose to ignore the obvious statement and proceeded toward the stairs. Before he could do anything, he had to change into a fitting pair of clothes. His room wouldn’t have anything that would fit. Maybe Mom could find something old in the attic.

   He ascended the stairs one at a time, but they still felt bigger than usual. Each step was like a hurdle he had get over before moving onto the next. Without looking in the mirror, he estimated he was maybe three or four based on height. But he never remembered struggling this much when he was first that age.

   Klaus approached from behind and started taking steps two at a time until he was next to Five. It didn’t take very long.

   “You look like you’re having trouble.”

   “I’m not.”

   “Ben said I should help you.”

   “Tell Ben to mind his own business.”

   “Ben’s offended.”

   “I don’t care.”

   Klaus looked back at his brother Ben and gave him a look of _‘what now?’_.

   Ben probably would have pushed Five down the stairs if he were corporeal… No, admittedly, he would not, but pushing Five down the stairs still would have felt good. Nobody ever listened to his suggestions…

   “Just pick him up and carry him upstairs,” Ben tried to reason with Klaus.

   “What are you, dead and crazy? I’m not doing that,” Klaus whispered.

   As Five continued to climb the stairs, Ben and Klaus bickered about what to do with him. Finally, after the back and forth conversation that only Klaus could hear ended, Klaus sighed loudly.

   “Fine! Come on, old man. We’re going up the stairs!” Klaus picked Five up by the waist and carried him to the top of the stairs. Five was practically kicking and screaming the moment his feet left the ground, but Klaus wouldn’t put him down.

   “What are you doing? Put me down!” he cried.

   Klaus was equally as stressed out by their current predicament. “We’re almost to the top, just stop struggling before I drop you!”

   “No! Put me down!” Five tried to use his powers to jump to the landing but he was still too drained. He kicked his little legs out and nailed Klaus once in the stomach. It was enough to make Klaus drop him, thankfully at the top of the stairs.

   As soon as Five was back on the ground, he made a B-line to his bedroom and shut the door. Through the walls, he could hear something akin to _‘You’re welcome!’_ , but he promptly ignored it. His problems were bigger than hurt feelings and he had little time to fix them. Even being three feet tall would have to wait until he could figure out how to save the world.

   Still, he couldn’t help the creeping anxiety that came from not knowing what he looked like. After short deliberation, he resolved to find a mirror.

   His room was made for function, not fashion, though. So he didn’t have many mirrors laying around. There were no floor length reflections he could look into. The closest thing he could find was an old hand-held mirror Allison had left in his room ages ago. It was tucked away in his desk drawer. He opened the drawer and readied himself.

   He flipped over the mirror and felt his stomach drop.

   Staring back at him was the reflection of a small child with big, round eyes, rosy cheeks, and floppy brown hair. He was even missing a few baby teeth. Bottom line: If he thought looking thirteen was bad, then this was a thousand times worse.

   Five was so busy staring at himself, he barely noticed when Grace opened his door.

   Grace smiled at him, seemingly unfazed. She sat a pile of clothes down on the bed and turned to him.

   “Would you like help getting dressed, Five?”

   She seemed so earnest, Five couldn’t be upset with her. He quietly tucked the mirror back in the drawer and shut it. “No thank you, Mom. I can do it myself.”

   She smiled again and left his room. When Five was finally alone, he found himself holding back tears.

   This attempt to save the world was going to be much harder than the last…

   ...

   ...

   Outside, Cha Cha was scoping out the mansion from the front seat of her car.

   It wasn't her first time in the apocalypse either. But this time she was alone. Hazel had gone off with that stupid little girlfriend of his and now she was left to fend for herself. The one person she thought she could trust in the Commission, and he had gone and left her--after trying to kill her too. She was left alone without a partner, without a briefcase, without any way out.

   She died in the apocalypse. She could still remember what it felt like to burn alive.

   But it was a new timeline now. And in this timeline, she would be the one that lived. And the Hargreeves--they would be the ones to suffer.

   Cha Cha was going to finish what she started.

   Then she could finally be free from the Commisson.

**Author's Note:**

> We'll see how my Summer schedule works out, but I should be able to update at least once a week. Let me know if you liked it in the comments below! I have a rough idea for the plot, but if there's anything you're dying to read, let me know!


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